Elegy by Tara Hudson Page B

lot of the cemetery. Inside, however, I was a riot—all spastic heartbeats and rapidly firing nerves. I was pretty sure that if someone didn’t speak soon, I would start to implode.
    Finally, my mother sucked in one steadying breath and stepped cautiously forward.
    “Miss?” she repeated. “You forgot this.”
    I didn’t realize that she’d been holding something until she lifted one arm and opened her hand in offering. A single, perfectly round daisy sat in the center of her palm. I frowned at it, momentarily confused. Then I shook my head.
    “No, that’s not mine.”
    I kept my voice high and breathy in an attempt to disguise it. My mother didn’t react in one way or another to the sound of it, so the effort must have worked. But she still shook her head.
    “It is,” she said simply, stretching her arm out so that her palm was a fraction closer to me. I paused, looking between the daisy and her face. I could tell from the determined set of her mouth that she wouldn’t leave me alone until I took the flower. The real issue, then, was how exactly I would take it from her.
    Not sure what else to do, I reached out and, with the tips of my fingers, plucked the uppermost petals of the flower. It lifted from her hand without our skin ever touching, and I tried not to sigh in relief. When I cupped the flower to my side, I felt the petals scratch at my palm—the daisy was fake, a pretend blossom of fabric and plastic.
    My mother still didn’t react as I took it, nor did she say anything when, after one last glance at her, I spun back around and began to hurry down the road that led away from the cemetery. It wasn’t until I’d reached the main road—the one I would take back to the Mayhews’ house—that I realized what my mother had done.
    She’d offered me a fabric daisy: the very kind of flower she always placed on my grave.

Chapter
FOURTEEN

    S he knows. I know she knows.”
    “Maybe not. Your mother could have meant anything when she handed you that flower. Maybe she really did think it was yours. Like she thought that you dropped it, or something.”
    Hearing this highly unlikely explanation, I didn’t say anything. Instead, the corners of my mouth tugged into a tight, disbelieving smile, and I arched one eyebrow at Jillian. Seeing my skeptical eyebrow raise, she shrugged and leaned against one column of her parents’ front porch.
    “But . . . probably not.”
    “Probably not,” I echoed.
    Then I wrapped my cardigan more tightly around me and craned to peer around another porch column. It was already dark outside, but I didn’t need a spotlight to see that the driveway was completely empty. It had been, since Jeremiah and Rebecca left to watch Joshua’s baseball game.
    “Where is she?” I asked. “She should have been here hours ago.”
    Jillian and I had been waiting far too long for Ruth’s taxi. Her flight should have landed at Wilburton’s tiny municipal airport late that afternoon. But five p.m. had come and gone with no sign of a car—and no contact from Ruth whatsoever.
    Again Jillian responded to me with a shrug, but this time she actually looked nervous. Like she knew that each second that ticked by meant another life was put more at risk.
    I leaned against the railing of the porch and sighed raggedly. I wanted a lot of things right then, but more than anything, I wanted Joshua.
    Part of me hoped that he had a fantastic game—one where he didn’t have to worry about death or demons or his crazy girlfriend who liked to throw hand grenades. Another part of me missed him horribly, especially after I read the note he left for me on the gazebo’s daybed:
    I understand. Good luck tonight. I love you.
    Such a simple note, and yet every word made me ache inside.
    I should’ve told Joshua why I wanted to leave early for the funeral. In fact, I should’ve just said yes when he suggested that he go with me. It didn’t help that almost everyone else in his life—his parents; Scott; his